An excerpt from participation in a recent Industry Roundtable discussion for the Stellar Awards

Hey everyone, Here’s an excerpt from an Industry Roundtable interview I did along with several other industry execs. The interview was in Tehillah Magazine, the official magazine & souvenir book for the 2010 Stellar Awards. If you haven’t gotten a copy, I encourage you to do so by clicking here. (Special thanks to George Daigle on a great job). Here’s my portion of the discussion, get the magazine for the rest…good stuff!

TEHILLAH MAGAZINE: Is it realistic or important for an artist to acquire a major deal?

BRANDON EGERTON: What I’ve found is that unfortunately, there are a lot of what could be very valid music ministries sitting on the sidelines waiting on a dream record deal to show up before they begin to pursue what God has placed on their hearts. For a while, I think the term – Independent Artist, was seen sort of as a negative in some people’s minds – meaning maybe ‘not good enough to be signed’ or ‘not commercial enough.’ The reality is, if your goal is to sell your own music, then to do so successfully, you need to do what a label does. So it’s important to find out what the role of a label is and have a plan as to how you’re going to fulfill those roles.

TEHILLAH MAGAZINE: How could an artist or independent label use modern technology to release a project?

BRANDON EGERTON: I believe this is a fantastic time to be an independent artist. Not only can you have creative control over your music, you also can make it easily available to fans worldwide to purchase via iTunes and other digital retailers. Until recently, you pretty much had to be affiliated with a major distributor to get to those retailers, but sites like TuneCore, Nimbit, CD Baby and others now make that opportunity easily available to you. Of course, it’s not enough just to release music on iTunes, you have to let people know it’s available and compel them to buy it. That’s where your marketing strategy and all of the other hard work comes in. Use social networks, blogs and other forms of internet media to build a fan base. Do me a favor though, before making the music available to the masses, make sure the quality level (well written, professionally produced, mixed and mastered) is where it should be. The last thing we need is to misrepresent the Gospel with more mediocre product.